The disappointment of that result had not played out when he was speaking in the January edition of Four Four Two magazine, but the Frenchman was nonetheless in pensive mood during the interview.

Wenger has seen the likes of Robin van Persie, Cesc Fabregas, Samir Nasri and Alex Song leave Emirates Stadium in recent seasons, and he outlined a sense of what might have been.

"My regret is that we already had a great team two or three years ago which could compete on four fronts," Wenger said.

"We just missed out in the Champions League against Barcelona [in the last-16 tie in 2011], when we could have scored in the last minute, and then we just missed out on the Premier League too.

"But you could feel the potential was there, and I thought, 'Okay, let's do this together'. Then the team split up, sometimes after five or six years' work, it is frustrating, you have to start all over again."

He added: "We have lost recent players earlier in their careers - to lose Van Persie, Fabregas, Nasri and Song in just two years, it is a massive amount of potential, of course you worry."